Plastic Surgery Confidential.

Last year, Vanity Fair published the story of a woman who went undercover to three plastic surgeons to see what they would recommend for her. An excerpt:

Fast-forward to the present. In 2007 alone, Americans spent $13 billion on 11.7 million cosmetic procedures (both surgical and nonsurgical). An ongoing controversy over what qualifies as “cosmetic” makes it difficult to determine the number of treatments that were purely restorative, necessitated by third-degree burns, mastectomies, and other medical issues. But what’s clear is that the overall number of men and women undergoing cosmetic procedures in the U.S. has increased by 457 percent since 1997, when relevant statistical data was first collected. As many as one in 20 people today reportedly suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (B.D.D.), a sort of “imagined ugly” syndrome. While difficult to diagnose, plastic-surgery addiction is often linked to B.D.D. Dr. Barry Eppley, who writes a blog titled “Explore Plastic Surgery,” estimates that one-third of plastic-surgery patients will eventually return to have additional work done.

When I began this project, I was relatively certain that I didn’t need plastic surgery. I also suspected that plastic surgeons might tell me otherwise. To test my hypothesis, I went undercover. In the process, I hoped to learn something about what happens inside examination rooms across New York City and, by extension, the United States. Are teenybopper idols and those who emulate them freely choosing plastic surgery? Or is plastic surgery choosing them?

The rest of the article, which makes a great read, can be found here.

And the woman who I imagine holds the world record for plastic surgeries, Ms. Jocelyn Wildenstein:

Nobody knows how many surgeries she's had, but it's likely far more than lots and lots and lots.

Labiaplasty in Australia.

The seriously twisted effect of ridiculous government policy (NSFW):

This story aired on national television in Australia last night. How censorship laws are driving perceptions of normal female genitalia provides an interesting (albeit disturbing) perspective.

This is not the first time the Australian government has come up with ludicrous censorship policy: link and link.

While censorship laws are not to blame here, the popularity of labiaplasty has surged in North America too, as mentioned in class.

From one of your peers.

As I'm sure many of you already know, a Facebook page called UBC Compliments sprung up last fall. There are similar pages for colleges and universities across North America (and probably across the pond, too). The idea is simple - anybody can submit anonymous compliments about anything UBC-related. I was alerted about one submission in particular, which is long, but is a must-read. It's an extraordinary story of transformation, and how environment can have a profound effect on one's sense of self:

To my friends, colleagues, and the UBC community - thank you:

Much of my life has been a struggle over accepting my sexual identity, that I am a gay male. This post is more of an retrospect on how much my life has changed since entering UBC, and I'm very thankful for all the people I've met and the community for changing my life around. My life at UBC is a huge contrast from the life I had before.

I am currently in my final year completing a double major. I came to UBC in 2008 in pretty bad shape, I had been struggling with my gay sexual identity since grade 8 when I first realized I was gay. I was always depressed. And it was particularly difficult as I was attending an all-boys private Catholic school in Vancouver. Yes, you can <insert> the gay jokes here of how being in an all-boys school must have been paradise for any gay guy. Not quite exactly.

There was this tense homophobic atmosphere throughout the school. It was a jock-filled, testosterone-fuelled high school. Students were homophobic, teachers were homophobic. Well, for the most part anyway. I recall homosexuality being discussed in class. Well, it wasn't "discussed." My teachers were straight up telling us it was just plain wrong and evil. In one of my classes, my teacher asked us to raise our hands if they thought homosexuality was wrong. Everyone in our class of 30 did, including myself...gotta follow the crowd. A close friend of mine, who had transferred from public school (and is straight), said it was opposite from where he came from: the same question was asked, and every student had no issue with homosexuality.

Please go read the rest here.

Class act.

Despite the extremely NSFW (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) language, I think this is worth posting. I've posted about male sexual entitlement and the fragile male ego before (here and here).

Despite all the strides made in gender equality, and that many men do not exhibit these sorts of repugnant traits, attitudes, and behaviours, it's clear we've still got a long way to go. Conversations like the following are not at all uncommon. The narrative, from the invitation, the lack of respect given when the invitation is turned down, to the inability to graciously accept rejection, to the hostility and harassment that follows, is typical of some men. This is pretty much a textbook case.

Via Yer a wizard, Mary, and a thumpin' good one (click to make larger):

On love and family.

Via the SLOG: 

Support the award-winning show daring listeners to view the world a whole new way. Donate to the Snap Judgment Kickstarter: http://ht.ly/BRU7D After watching Noah's amazing performance, experience more storytelling magic @ www.SnapJudgment.org Exploding onto the performance scene by grabbing the Youth Speaks Grand Slam Championship, watch as 15-year-old Noah St.

Holy epic music.

Another new study on pubic hair styling.

From the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Abstract:

Introduction.  Pubic hair removal is prevalent among women in the United States. However, most studies related to pubic hair removal are based on cross-sectional surveys and retrospective recall. Aim.  The purpose of this research was to, in a prospective event-level daily diary study, assess demographic, affective, relational, situational, and behavioral factors related to women's pubic hair removal. Method.  Data collection occurred as part of a 5-week prospective, Internet-based daily diary study. Main Outcome Measures.  Age; Affective predictors (positive mood, negative mood, feeling interested in sex, feeling in love); Relational predictors (partner support, partner negativity, partner type, partner gender); Situational predictors (any vaginal symptoms, use of any vaginal hygiene products; having applied any creams to the genitals); Behavioral variables (penile-vaginal sex, penile-anal sex, had finger inserted into vagina, had clitoris stimulated with fingers, inserted toy into vagina, used vibrator on clitoris, inserted finger into anus, inserted toy into anus, duration of penetration, intensity of penetration). Results.  A total of 2,453 women ages 18 to 68 (mean age 32.69) completed the study, contributing 49,287 total diaries (mean per person 24.5; standard deviation 10.3, median 30); 15.2% of all days (N = 7,362) involved pubic hair waxing or shaving, with the vast majority of hair removal days involving shaving (N = 7,302; 99%). Pubic hair removal was significantly associated with younger age, a greater interest in sex, vaginal fingering, finger-clitoral stimulation, having a casual sex partner, using vaginal hygiene products, and applying cream to the genitals. Hair removal was marginally associated with longer duration of vaginal penetration. Conclusions.  These findings provide greater insight into the factors associated with women's pubic hair removal and their sexual experiences on a day-to-day level. Clinical and educational implications are discussed.

Full reference:

Herbenick, D., Hensel, D., Smith, N.K., Schick, V., Reece, M., Sanders, S.A., & Fortenberry, J.D. (2012). Pubic Hair removal and sexual behavior: Findings from a prospective daily diary study of sexually active women in the United States. Journal of Sexual Medicine. doi: 10.1111/jsm.12031. [Epub ahead of print]

More interesting model news.

From Time Style:

Male Models: The Female of the Species

Casey Legler is a woman working as a male model. She looks wonderfully comfortable shrugging into tailored suits and chomping on cigars. But assigning words to the experience isn’t as easy. In an interview in her New York City studio, Legler steers around phrases like “gender identity” and “gender expression” in favor of having a conversation about freedom.

“I understand signifiers. We’re social creatures and we have a physical language of communicating with each other,” she says. “But it would be a really beautiful thing if we could all just wear what we wanted, without it meaning something.”

Androgyny has long been celebrated in the fashion world. Women have modeled as men, and men have modeled as women. Andrej Pejic, a young male model from Bosnia, made a splash in recent years with his feminine beauty and knack for wearing women’s clothes. (“Andrej is gorgeous,” Legler says. “In many ways, I come ushered in by that.”) But it’s still rare — if not unheard of — for a woman to sign a contract to model men’s clothing exclusively.

Legler landed the modeling gig this summer when her friend, the photographer Cass Bird, invited her at the last minute to participate in the role of a man for a photo shoot for Muse magazine. The photos were shared with an agent at Ford Models, and the next day, Legler was invited to sign a contract to work exclusively from their male roster.

“This is a unique little moment that fashion is allowing to have happen,” Legler says.

Her own relationship with fashion has always been complex. At age 13, she had already almost reached her full height (6 ft. 2 in.) and began swimming competitively in her home country of France.

“It really was just something that I happened to be good at,” Legler says. “My fantasy was always to be able to sit by the pool deck, preferably in a pink tutu, reading a book.”

When she qualified for the Olympic Games in Atlanta at age 18, Legler got together with some of her male teammates and shaved her head, eager to experience the feeling they described of swimming with a bald head.

“That was the beginning,” Legler says. “It was always one of those things: ‘These people get to do it, I really want to do it — why can’t I?’”

After the Olympics, Legler flirted with more traditional paths before coming into her own as an artist. She now works in several media, meditating on themes like time, ritual, mythology and the body. She often appears in her own pieces, using her physicality and movement as part of the work. While her entry into modeling was swift and surprising, she is eager to emphasize that becoming a male model is a natural extension of her art. It also helps that she has forged friendships in the art world, including with photographers like Bird and Ryan McGinley.

“I have a body of work. I don’t think that anyone looking at that body of work and then seeing me as a model would see it as any kind of a stretch,” Legler says. “It implies something interesting. I am not the artmaker in those cases. I get to participate with other artmakers as part of their palette.”

As for being on the men’s roster, Legler says that working as a peer with other male models has been nothing but positive. She looks forward to walking in shows in Paris in January and New York in February, and to following wherever this new role takes her.

“I wish a long and slow career for myself,” Legler says. “For everyone.”

50 Shade of Grey cited as cause of divorce.

From the Daily Mail:

50 Shades of Divorce: Wife 'inspired' by erotic book says husband failed to meet her expectations

It's had a major impact on the publishing world – and in quite a few bedrooms.

But now Fifty Shades Of Grey is at the centre of an unusual court case.

A man is being divorced by his wife after he refused to spice up their love life by reliving scenes from the erotic bestseller.

The wife, a 41-year-old banker earning more than £400,000 a year, claims her husband’s ‘boring attitude’ to sex is evidence of ‘unreasonable behaviour’.

In her grounds for divorce, filed at the High Court, she refers to the novel, which tells of the sadomasochistic affair between billionaire Christian Grey and naive student Anastasia Steele. The woman in the court case bought the raunchy book almost as soon as it was published last year and hoped it would encourage her husband to be more adventurous in bed.

She bought some sexy underwear but her husband failed to respond to her advances and he even blamed her behaviour on ‘that bloody book’.

Now she has petitioned for divorce citing his alleged low libido as evidence of ‘unreasonable behaviour’, one of the five grounds for divorce under English law. The wife’s solicitor, Amanda McAlister, a family law expert, believes the case is the first where the new phenomenon of ‘mummy porn’ has triggered a divorce.

She said: ‘The woman had been reading the book and wanted to spice up her love life.

‘She thought their sex life had hit a rut – he never remembered Valentine’s Day and he never complimented her on her appearance. So she bought sexy underwear in an attempt to get her husband more involved. She said, “Let’s make things more interesting”.

‘But when he still didn’t take any notice she told him he had a boring attitude to sex and she was fed up.

‘He went ballistic when he found out the name of the book she was reading and told her, “It’s all because you have been reading that bloody book”.’

The husband is admitting ‘unreasonable behaviour’ so the divorce can be granted quickly without a contested hearing in which his alleged low libido would be discussed in court.

Miss McAlister, of Russell Jones and Walker, claims the case is evidence of a social change where women have been encouraged to become more adventurous in the bedroom.

She said: ‘There has been a real shift in sexual attitudes.

‘It used to be the men who complained they weren’t getting enough nookie in the bedroom.

‘But now it’s the women who are calling their husbands boring after reading books like Fifty Shades.’

The novel is the first in a trilogy by British author EL James which have sold more than 60million copies worldwide. James – real name Erika Mitchell – describes her books as ‘romantic fantasy’ stories that offer women a ‘holiday from their husbands’.

The 49-year-old mother of two is said to be worth almost £4million after signing book deals on both sides of the Atlantic and a Hollywood movie contract.

The books have sparked a ‘mummy porn’ genre with publishers rushing to bring out more similar erotic fiction. One academic has even claimed the success of Fifty Shades has led to a baby boom after revitalising the sex lives of married couples.

The Pervocracy: The Myth of the Boner Werewolf

From The Pervocracy:

There's a pernicious myth out there that the male sex drive is unstoppable and irresistible--that once a man is aroused, he literally cannot control his actions. We tell jokes about "thinking with the other head" and "all the blood went out of his brain" that aren't entirely jokes. We have a cultural narrative in which sexual arousal makes a man into a goddamn werewolf.

And we expect women to tiptoe around this uncontrollable male sexuality. We tell them to watch how they dress, lest they wake the beast. We tell them "some guys can't control themselves"--not won't, but can't. We tell them to be careful what they start, because they'll be expected to finish it. Hell, way too often we outright tell them that they have no right to withdraw consent once sex has started.

My response to myths like this, more and more, is "shit, if I believed that, I'd never have sex with a man again." I wonder if the story would change if more guys realized that saying "if a woman gets me turned on, she'd better be ready to go all the way" is the same as saying "getting me turned on is dangerous, better not take the risk."

Then again, I wonder why more men aren't just insulted by the whole concept. If someone started telling stories about how my gender was controlled by our genitalia and sexual arousal turns us into rapist automatons, I would be outraged. I would explain in very small, very loud words that I am a person and I can goddamn control myself. I wish more men would speak up to say "actually, even when I can't turn my erection off, I can sure as hell use the rest of my body to put it somewhere it won't bother anyone."

I wish our culture prized self-control as much as it does virility, and even more, I wish our culture didn't act like they were opposites. Even I can't 100% shake the worry that the story at the top makes Rowdy sound desexualized or submissive, (or super nice and extra feminist, rather than "bare minimum of human decency") even though all it describes is him not raping me.

Men aren't rollercoasters. They aren't werewolves. They aren't walking penises. They're people. They make decisions. Let's stop talking about "he couldn't stop himself" and start talking about "he decided not to stop." Men deserve that dignity, and the responsibility that comes with it.

Exodus International changes position on conversion therapy.

Exodus International is one of the most prominent organizations in the conversion therapy world. Among the many things they're know for, perhaps the two projects that have received the most attention are their app, which is intended to help people extinguish their same-sex sexual attraction, and their involvement in shaping Uganda's extremely severe laws against homosexuality. It's now considered one of the worst places to live, on the entire planet, if you're a homosexual.

Recently, Exodus have started to change their tune. From the New York Times:

Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay ‘Cure’ Is Renounced

For more than three decades, Exodus International has been the leading force in the so-called ex-gay movement, which holds that homosexuals can be “cured” through Christian prayer and psychotherapy.

Exodus leaders claimed its network of ministries had helped tens of thousands rid themselves of unwanted homosexual urges. The notion that homosexuality is not inborn but a choice was seized on by conservative Christian groups who oppose legal protections for gay men and lesbians and same-sex marriage.

But the ex-gay movement has been convulsed as the leader of Exodus, in a series of public statements and a speech to the group’s annual meeting last week, renounced some of the movement’s core beliefs. Alan Chambers, 40, the president, declared that there was no cure for homosexuality and that “reparative therapy” offered false hopes to gays and could even be harmful. His statements have led to charges of heresy and a growing schism within the network.

“For the last 37 years, Exodus has been a bright light, arguably the brightest one for those with same-sex attraction seeking an authentically Christian hope,” said Andrew Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries, based in Kansas City, Mo., one of 11 ministries that defected. His group left Exodus in May, Mr. Comiskey said in an e-mail, “due to leader Alan Chambers’s appeasement of practicing homosexuals who claim to be Christian” as well as his questioning of the reality of “sexual orientation change.”

In a phone interview Thursday from Orlando, Fla., where Exodus has its headquarters, Mr. Chambers amplified on the views that have stirred so much controversy. He said that virtually every “ex-gay” he has ever met still harbors homosexual cravings, himself included. Mr. Chambers, who left the gay life to marry and have two children, said that gay Christians like himself faced a lifelong spiritual struggle to avoid sin and should not be afraid to admit it.

Read the rest here.

LGBT rights worldwide.

Click to make larger:

John Corvino

From his YouTube channel:

John Corvino, also known as "The Gay Moralist," is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of Debating Same-Sex Marriage, co-written with Maggie Gallagher, and has spoken at over 200 university campuses on ethics, sexuality, and marriage.

All his videos are excellent, but this one, in particular, stands out:

What does it mean when people call same-sex relations "unnatural," and why should that judgment matter anyway? Philosopher John Corvino takes apart this claim, demonstrating that, in the usual cases, it's empty rhetorical flourish. Dr. John Corvino, also known as the "Gay Moralist," is a writer, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Watch the rest of his videos here.

RCMP: It Gets Better.

There are literally hundreds and hundreds of IGB videos, many from high-profile individuals and groups. The breadth of people and organizations that have submitted videos is evidence that a major shift in attitudes is taking place. There's still a long way to go, but I don't think we're that far off from a time when sexual identity is non-issue, which is good. The RCMP released this IGB video yesterday, and it's been making the rounds through most news and media outlets.

The RCMP is the latest group to create a video in the "It Gets Better" theme -- aimed primarily at youth. Championed by the Surrey RCMP Youth Unit, the 20 participants taped interviews in the summer of 2012. The video was finalized, by BC RCMP Multi-media services in the fall of 2012.

A past pro-lifer reflects on the pro-life movement.

I realize that there are likely some readers who are pro-life, and this post is in no way meant to be an attack, by me, on your perspective. Yes, it's about someone who left the pro-life movement, and yes, she dismantles many of the arguments made by those who are pro-life. But for those who are pro-life, her post is still worth a read, as it will help you better understand what can be done if the end goal is to reduce abortions rates.

By Libby Anne, of Love, Joy, Feminism:

How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement

The spring of my sophomore year of college I was president of my university’s Students for Life chapter. The fall of my junior year of college I cut my ties with the pro-life movement. Five years later I have lost the last shred of faith I had in that movement. This is my story.

I was raised in the sort of evangelical family where abortion is the number one political issue. I grew up believing that abortion was murder, and when I stopped identifying as pro-life I initially still believed that. Why, then, did I stop identifying as pro-life? Quite simply, I learned that increasing contraceptive use, not banning abortion, was the key to decreasing the number of abortions. Given that the pro-life movement focuses on banning abortion and is generally opposed advocating greater contraceptive use, I knew that I no longer fit. I also knew that my biggest allies in decreasing the number of abortions were those who supported increased birth control use – in other words, pro-choice progressives. And so I stopped calling myself pro-life.

My views on fetal personhood and women’s bodily autonomy have shifted since that day, but when I first started blogging a year and a half ago I was nevertheless very insistent that the pro-life movement should be taken at its word when it came to rhetoric about saving “unborn babies” from being “murdered.” I insisted that the pro-life movement wasn’t anti-woman or anti-sex, and that those who opposed abortion genuinely believed that a zygote/embryo/fetus was a person with rights in need of protection just like any other person. I believed that the pro-life movement’s actions were counterproductive, but that they were merely misinformed. I wrote a post with practical suggestions for opponents of abortion. I believed that the pro-life movement was genuine in its goals, but simply ignorant about how its goals might best be obtained.

I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong.

As a child, teen, and college student, I sincerely believed that personhood, life, rights, and the soul all began at fertilization. I was honestly opposed to abortion because I believed it was murder. It had nothing to do with being anti-woman or anti-sex. I thought that the pro-life movement writ large – the major pro-life organizations, leaders, and politicians – were similarly genuine. I thought that they, like myself, simply wanted to “save the lives of unborn babies.”

I have come to the conclusion that I was a dupe.

What I want to share here is how I came to this realization. And if you, reader, are one of those who opposes abortion because you believe it is murder and you want to save the lives of unborn babies, well, I hope to persuade you that the pro-life movement is not actually your ally in this, that you have been misled, and that you would be more effective in decreasing the number of abortions that occur if you were to side with pro-choice progressives. If this is you, please hear me out before shaking your head.

Read the rest here.

And the follow-up to the criticisms and questions here.

Dan Savage and the straight man.

From the Atlantic:

Dan Savage: The Gay Man Who Teaches Straight People How to Have Sex

One of the Savage Love columnist's most notable qualities is his concern for heterosexual men—but that wasn't always the case.

Two summers ago, over the Fourth of July weekend, the New York Times Magazine published a cover story I had written about infidelity and the future of marriage. My main character was Dan Savage, the writer and activist who for years has argued that many good marriages fall apart because couples have unrealistic expectations about monogamy. For months after my essay ran, I heard from friends, and from total strangers. Some of the mail was creepy: I got letters from two husbands who said they had been trying to broach the subject of an open marriage with their wives, and now they were hoping that, by leaving my article lying about the house, they could casually segue into the topic. But most of the letters were sweet and sincere and not the least bit unctuous. One newlywed woman, a neighbor of mine, saw me on my street and said, "Thanks for that piece. Dan Savage has meant a lot to me, and to my marriage."

As it happened, almost every person who wrote or spoke to me about the piece was heterosexual. Dan Savage is famously gay, one of the most famous gay Americans, and I had no idea how deeply many straight people related to him—even more, how much they loved him, how grateful they were for what he said, for what he wrote, for him.

Savage promotes the nuclear family unit because he believes that it is a healthy model for everybody: gay couples, straight couples, children. But his cheerleading for heterosexuals goes even further. He always seems to be rooting for us. I believe that one of Savage's most notable qualities is the particular compassion he feels for straight men.

But Savage did not always feel so warmly. After a rough adolescence, he expected to find a little company in the theater department in college, and he was a bit perplexed, he recalls, to be "the only gay guy in the acting program." After college, "all these other guys in the acting program came out. That made me mad at straight people." Blaming straight people for closeted gay people does not make immediate sense, but remember that it was the mid-1980s, gay men were filling the graveyard, Ronald Reagan was doing nothing, and an out, proud gay identity was one possible munition against the enemy. If straight people were shaming gay people into the closet, fuck straight people.

"I started writing Savage Love still really mad at straight people," Savage says. "But getting their mail. . . . It's really straight guys who get the bum rap. The way straight people have redefined marriage, and the way they define sexuality, it's really unrealistic about male sexuality.

"And reading letters from straight guys made me hugely sympathetic to straight guys. And I was already sympathetic to straight women, because men are pigs and I sleep with men so know what that's like. I arrived sympathetic to straight women—I became sympathetic to straight men, reading these bat-shit letters from straight guys who were being terrorized and being driven crazy, because sex is scarce if you're a straight guy. It's not scarce if you have a pussy or if you're a fag. But if you're a straight guy?

"Straight guys run the world, but that includes the Taco Bell franchise. They're less free sexually than anybody else. The girl who eats pussy once or twice in college can tell her husband, and he's not going to believe she's a lesbian, and she is not going to be terrorized by that experience. But these poor straight guys, who meet the one guy who blips onto their sex radar, and they're devastated! They think no matter how much sex they've had with women, this is proof . . . because straight male sexuality is two negatives bundled together: it's to not be a woman and to not be a fag. So anything a straight guy might be interested in that is perceived as feminine or faggy is really destabilizing to their selves.

"After reading their letters for a couple years, I realized gay men and women were complicit in this too. If you've had sex once with a man, they say you're gay. Gay men want you to be gay—if you look like Tom Cruise. There is not a lot of speculation whether Seth Rogen is gay. I fucked women. Nobody ever says to me, 'Oh, you couldn't have done that if you weren't actually straight."'

And soon enough Savage had a lot in common with the average straight guy. He is a breadwinner in a fairly traditional marriage, with a son and a stay-at-home spouse. He is, to me, a fellow dad, one whose heart clearly lies with the two-parent family with children. As I learned in Seattle, he is one of the few men as boringly earnest on the pleasures of parenting as I am; he is adoring of his husband, Terry, and much of his finest work—his books, his This American Life essays—are hymns to close relatives.

Right now, Dan Savage is our country's sex doctor and its love doctor, its number-one gay and its cheerleader for straights, its theorist of gay marriage and of straight marriage. There is, therefore, nothing particularly gay about the work he does at the moment; he has transcended those categories. And that is a feat only a gay man or lesbian could accomplish. I could never win the kind of acceptance as an authority on gay sex, or gay families, that Savage has won among straights. Our very few openly gay actors cannot get cast as straight leading men—they may be tolerated, even loved, but they are still marked—but Savage has broken free of the box. He is, I think, the first openly gay American to do so.

"One should never underestimate the simple radicalism of an openly gay man giving straight people sex advice," Andrew Sullivan told me. "To come out swinging like that, as an openly gay guy telling straight people what to do in bed, was more revolutionary than we now realize." It's true; I never realized it.

When I am watching Dan Savage, or listening to him, or reading his words, I never even think about the revolution. I just think about sex, or I think about love. How radical is that.

This is an excerpt from Dan Savage: The First Gay Celebrity, by Mark Oppenheimer, an e-book that can be purchased here.

Best anti-anti-gay marriage rant ever?

Via the SLOG (NSFW!!!): 

Jamie Kilstein on "The Green Room with Paul Provenza". Other guests include Kathleen Madigan, Ron White, and Lewis Black. www.facebook.com/jamiekilsteinfanpage www.twitter.com/jamiekilstein www.wearecitizenradio.com www.jamiekilstein.com Buy Jamie's CD: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/libel-slander-sedition/id458021027

Gay bashing and homophobia in the Ukraine.

From the BBC:

Ukraine takes aim against 'gay propaganda'

Svyatoslav Sheremet, head of Gay Forum of Ukraine, is attacked earlier this year

The Ukrainian parliament could give final approval next week to a bill that aims to outlaw "pro-homosexual propaganda" - any "positive depiction" of gay people, gay pride marches, or even the screening of a film like Brokeback Mountain.

Critics have described the legislation, which imposes indeterminate fines and up to five years in prison for repeat offenders, as a throwback to the Middle Ages, although it is only a couple of decades since homosexuality was a criminal offence here and in the rest of the USSR.

In some ways, Ukraine is an open and tolerant society. It was the first former Soviet republic to decriminalise homosexuality, in 1991. It has sprouted its own gay rights movement, and gay night clubs operate freely in central Kiev.

But despite this, the bill - which sailed through its first reading last week - enjoys wide backing. All major political parties are united in support, and polls indicate that many Ukrainians support some restrictions on the rights of sexual minorities.

One of the legislation's incubators is the Christian Hope evangelical church in Kiev. Located in a nondescript five-story structure outside the city centre, Christian Hope provides a wide array of educational and charity services, and has established a network of some 150 churches throughout Ukraine. It has also helped collect thousands of signatures in support of three anti-gay bills put forward in parliament this year.

After a rousing service in the church's warehouse-like auditorium focusing on the agonies of sin and bliss of salvation, I meet the chief pastor, Valery Reshetinsky. For him, the fight against homosexuality is a matter of "national security" upon which the survival of the nation depends.

"Here's the issue," says Pastor Reshetinsky, a large-boned man with a slight moustache, tells me. "In a real democracy, my freedom and rights are limited by the freedom of someone else."

In his opinion, freedom of speech for sexual minorities is a violation of what he considers his inalienable right not to have to hear something he finds offensive.

"You can't do everything that you want to do, because there are people who have the exact same rights as you do," he insists.

The pastor goes on to accuse a worldwide conspiracy of Masons, New-Agers, postmodernists and financiers of various nationalities, of imposing ideas that are not "characteristic for Ukraine" on the nation's children.

The first reading of the bill last week unleashed a deluge of condemnation from human rights organisations, both inside and outside Ukraine, who have christened it a "gay gag law". The ban would be a gross violation of European and international conventions, they say, leading to further marginalisation of Ukraine's LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.

Read the rest here.

The homosexual agenda.

The Betty Bowers site is satirical commentary on what's been called the gay or homosexual agenda by social conservatives. The contention is that the gay community, and those who support it, is trying to infiltrate all aspects of society in attempt to normalize non-heterosexual sexual orientations. This includes indoctrinating school-ages children and influencing Hollywood's programming. I've posted some other satire about it before (link).

From her site:

As every Christian knows, there is only one enemy that threatens our entire civilization. And I am, of course, not talking about Satan. I'm talking about those damned homosexuals! Yes, they give otherwise dull hair radiant highlights and our imperfect décor those fabulous flourishes that elude our more predictable heterosexual sensibilities, but at what price? In exchange for a little panache, we allow homosexuals to steal our children and destroy our Christian marriages. And how do they do this? With their secret masterplan -- The Homosexual Agenda!

Many a well-intentioned person has asked me, "Betty, what exactly is The Homosexual Agenda?" Well, if you have to ask, you are probably already under its pernicious influence and blithely hop-scotching your way straight to Hell. Nevertheless, the details of The Homosexual Agenda have -- up until this day -- been kept more secret than the nature of John Travolta's and Tom Cruise's marriages. But I am pleased to announce that through innumerable free vodka sea-breezes and some artful Christian skullduggery, I have gotten my hands on an authentic copy of The Homosexual Agenda. Praise the Lord!

I have had my secretaries, Miss Anne Thrope and Anita Priceczech, transcribe The Homosexual Agenda from the back of a used cocktail napkin (the original is to be placed in the Smithsonian Institute) for your convenient reference. Never again shall we be surprised by what these malevolent Nancy Boys are up to. While they may still be able to surprise us with a cunningly perfect piece of Chinese porcelain for our Biederimeier end-table, they will never again be able to surreptitiously take over our culture, families and prime-time television without God-fearing Christians being one step ahead of them! Praise the Lord!

And a sample from the agenda:

8:00 a.m. Wake up. Wonder where you are.

8:01 a.m. Realize you are lying on 100 percent cotton sheets of at least a 300 count, so don't panic; you're not slumming.

8:02 a.m. Realize you are actually in your own bed for a change. Wake stranger next to you and tell them you are late for work so won't be able to cook breakfast for them. Mutter "sorry" as you help him look for his far-flung underwear. You find out that you tore his boxers while ripping them off him last night, so you "loan" him a pair of boxer-briefs, but not the new ones because you never intend to see him again.

8:05 a.m. Tell the stranger, whose name eludes you, "It was fun. I'll give you a call," as you usher him out the door, avoiding his egregious morning-breath.

8:06 a.m. Crumple and dispose of the piece of paper with his telephone number on it when you get to the kitchen.

8:07 a.m. Make a high protein breakfast while watching the Today show. Wonder if the stories you've heard about Matt Lauer are true. Decide they must be.

8:30 a.m. Italian or domestic? Decide to go with three-button Italian and the only shirt that is clean.

8:45 a.m. Climb into red Z4 and try not to look too much like Barbie driving one of her accessories as you pull out of your underground parking. Revos or Armanis? Go with Revos.

9:35 a.m. Stroll into office.

9:36 a.m. Close door to office and call best friend and laugh about the guy who spent the night at your condo. Point out something annoying about best friend's boyfriend but quickly add "It doesn't matter what everyone else thinks, just as long as you love him."

10:15 a.m. Leave office, telling your secretary you are "meeting with a client." Pretend not to notice her insubordinate roll of her eyes (or the cloying "poem" she has tacked to her cubicle wall).

10:30 a.m. Hair appointment for lowlights and cut. Purchase of Aveda anti-humectant pomade.

See the rest of the agenda here.

Misrepresentation data from OkCupid.

OkCupid is one of the largest online dating sites on the web. Before it was purchased by Match.com, there was a crack team of geeky researchers who poured through the data and reported interested findings on the OkCupid research blog, OkTrends. I've posted some of those findings previously (here, here, and here). If you want to go directly to the source, click here. Sadly, the blog hasn't been updated in over a year.

Jenn alerted me to some findings regarding members' misrepresentations of themselves. This ties in nicely with what was discussed in class this week. The first attribute they discuss is height.

Here's an excerpt from beginning on the post:

The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating

[...]

Anyhow, in many online situations, self-misrepresentation is totally harmless. Like, who cares if your Halo 3 avatar is taller than you are in real life? Or if flickr thinks you're single when you're really married? But in online dating, where the whole goal is to eventually meet other people in person, creating a false impression is a whole different deal.

People do everything they can in their OkCupid profiles to make themselves seem awesome, and surely many of our users genuinely are. But it's very hard for the casual browser to tell truth from fiction. With our behind-the-scenes perspective, we're able to shed some light on some typical claims and the likely realities behind them.

Let's get started.

"I'm 6 feet tall."

REALITY: People are two inches shorter in real life.

This whole post was inspired by an amusing graph we stumbled across while trying to answer the question Do taller guys have more sex? The answer, to a degree, is yes, and I'll expand on that in a little bit. But in this case what was more interesting than the sex was the (supposed) tallness of the guys.

The male heights on OkCupid very nearly follow the expected normal distribution—except the whole thing is shifted to the right of where it should be. You can see it better when we overlay the implied best fit below (pardon the technical language):

Almost universally guys like to add a couple inches. You can also see a more subtle vanity at work: starting at roughly 5' 8", the top of the dotted curve tilts even further rightward. This means that guys as they get closer to six feet round up a bit more than usual, stretching for that coveted psychological benchmark.

Women show a similar pattern. Go read the rest, including data about finances and attractiveness, here. This graph, in particular, is very telling:

STI cupcakes.

From the Huffington Post:

STD Cupcakes Meant To Shock, Educate, Perhaps Entice Visitors At Unique London Exhibition

HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, genital warts and other sexually transmitted diseases adorn a set of specially prepared -- and painstakingly anatomically correct -- cupcakes that will be part of an exhibition this weekend at the London St. Bart's Pathology Museum.

The second annual Eat Your Heart Out exhibition features a wide array of bizarre and grotesque goodies curated by "evil genius" public relations manager "Miss Cakehead" aka Emma Thomas (HuffPost Food has featured some of her other work previously). The goods are available for purchase by non-squeamish pastry lovers.

The STD cupcakes are meant to do more than shock, however. Besides having audiences admire the obvious skill of the chef behind the sugar-spun boils and warts, the event aims to help raise awareness about the dangers of unprotected sex.

Jenni Powell of Two Little Cats Bakery designed the cupcakes (which come in lemon, vanilla and chocolate flavors) for The Evil Cake Shop's exhibition and told The Huffington Post the experience was certainly a memorable one.

"I already knew a fair bit about STDs and their symptoms," Powell wrote in an email to HuffPost, explaining that she had worked as a "sexpert" on her university's sexual health outreach team. "A lot of diseases don't have visible symptoms, so I wanted to pick ones that would really make a statement on a cupcake!"

Despite her background, researching the symptoms was still a challenging process, one she called both "fascinating and disgusting in equal parts."

"I wanted to make the symptoms as true to life as I possibly could, so used medical journals and the good old internet....seriously my google image history is quite stomach churning," she said.

Response to the cakes has been mixed, according to Powell, but the best emails have been from people who said "they didn't realize that the swellings, scabs etc. look like that, and they're off to buy some condoms," Powell wrote. "Even if one person takes away the educational message then we've done a good job!"

Customers wishing to purchase the cupcakes can buy STD boxsets, available for £12 (about $19) each at the Pathology Museum.

Buyers will not be able to choose the cakes they get, however -- a purposeful choice, according to Thomas.

"It's like having unprotected sex with a stranger," she told The Sun. "You never know what you'll get!"

See the rest of the cupcakes in the gallery at the bottom of the page, here.